The First Rule of Fear
by panneler-san
Summary: Tom laughed at the thought that, before he met Hermione, he had never been afraid of anything.
1. In Which the Gate is Entered

**I know, what the hell am I doing? I haven't uploaded anything from D~M~101~W's in months, and here I go, starting a new story. Well, I like it. I hope you do, too.**

**I don't own Harry Potter.**

In Which the Gate is Entered

The Gate pulsated, and the faint blue light of time flared out across the empty moor, reflecting off of Harry Potter's somber expression. He glanced around him, at the faces of Professor McGonagall, Kingsley Shacklebolt, the Bloody Baron, Molly Weasley, and Susan Bones. An unlikely crew, Harry thought. There was no plausible reason for the six of them to be together like this, and yet here they were. The gate pulsated again, and the light rang like a bell across them, passing only through their ghost companion. Silence intruded the dark moor.

"Is she ready?" Molly asked.

"Nearly," said Susan. "Give her some time; she's nervous."

"Who the hell wouldn't be?" murmured the Baron under his breath.

"All of you, be silent," scolded Kingsley. "Think about Harry for a moment, please."

They quieted down. Harry looked up at the stars. "It's okay, Kingsley. Really. I'm not the one we should be worried about."

"What are you all talking about?"

They turned.

She was seventeen again. It had been so long since Harry had seen Hermione as a teenager that, for a moment, he thought it was he who had traveled through the gate, back through the ages to the time they lived in a tent, seeking Horcruxes and getting more adventure and heartache than they bargained for.

"Wow, Hermione," said Harry, "You look good for someone who just turned twenty-nine."

Hermione grinned. "I'm not twenty-nine yet, you dolt. My birthday isn't for another two months."

"You don't look like you're turning twenty-nine for another twelve years," said Professor McGonagall. "Baron, than you for your help in making the anti-aging potion."

"Oh dear," said Molly. "You do look quite a bit younger."

"She doesn't only look it," said Kingsley, "She is."

Everyone turned their attention to Hermione's young face. The light flared up a third time, and Hermione's smile faded.

"Don't do this," Harry pleaded. "Someone else can go – anyone else can go, Hermione, not you, you can't!"

"I'm the only one," she said. "Harry, I can't trust anyone else with this task. The gates have to be closed."

A fourth time, the light spun out.

"It's getting closer together," said Susan. "We have to hurry. Sorry Harry, but you two have to make this short."

Faced with the goodbye, neither the teenage Hermione nor the Harry in his late twenties knew what to say. Finally, Hermione settled with, "Where's Ron?"

Molly stepped forward. "I'm sorry, Dear," she said. "He refused to come. Harry and I tried to convince him, but…"

"Time to go," Hermione cut in. "Don't worry about me – you'll see me again in less than a second."

They all looked, for a moment, at the gate next to the blue one. It was red, and so far had not pulsated once. It was silent and somber as stone. Harry whispered dangerously, "How do we even know the gate will close?"

"I've researched and studied these damn gates with Susan for two years, Harry," she said. "This is our only chance."

The gate flashed.

"Quickly," said Susan, "There isn't time – go before it sucks us all in."

Hermione threw her arms around Harry's neck. "I'll be back in less than two minutes," she whispered. "Don't worry about me."

Flash.

"Hermione!"

"If something goes wrong – just if – tell Ron I'm sorry."

Flash.

"Hermione, go!"

"Hermione," Harry whispered. She drew back suddenly and raced toward the gate. Harry could have sworn he saw her look back as the light swallowed her up, blinding the world. Then, the light subsided, the pulses became infrequent, and Hermione Granger was gone.

The gates had appeared all over the world two years prior to that day. Always, they drew in curious people, always, they were sucked in, always, they were sent to the past. At first, Hermione wasn't interested in the gates at all – hardly any had appeared in London.

No one knew the reason for the gates. All the world knew was this: one was blue. One was red. One led to the past. And the other led to the present.

Lives were being destroyed. The first victim from London had been Padma Patil. She had gotten too close to a gate and was swallowed up. Moments later, a Padma twelve years older than she had been the day before appeared out of the red gate.

She had been hiding for twelve years, afraid of ruining the future, lost and scared and with no idea what to do. She was twelve years closer to death.

That was when Hermione and Susan Bones of the Department of Mysteries took up the case. It was Susan who first suggested that the gates were life forms. Not just gates, but living things. Hermione then posed the idea that the gates lived off of time stolen from the victim's life.

How or why they had appeared, they didn't know.

Hermione had found a way to close the gates. A spell, half self-invention and half ancient incantation, would close the gates, but only if one had passed through it. She hadn't wanted to reveal it, at first, because the idea was too vague to have any real merit.

And then, Bill had disappeared. They looked for him everywhere, and eventually found him.

He was in a cemetery. Bill had been sucked into a gate, a freak accident, and had died of illness during his twelve year imprisonment in the past. Ron blamed Hermione for not saving his brother. Bill wouldn't have died, he told her, if you had closed that bloody gate.

Bill wouldn't have died.

In case something went wrong, and she had to stay in the past, she had become seventeen again. Just in case she was forced to wait, now she could do so without wasting her life. It was unlikely that the potion she had taken to set back her body clock would even be needed, but Professor McGonagall had insisted they take precautionary measures.

Hermione was just hoping that nothing would go wrong.

She appeared with a splat in the mud. Sudden thunder, a flash of lightning, more thunder, and then rain pelted her back raw. Hermione looked around frantically. Both gates blazed brightly through the swirling grey air. She set to work immediately. From her robe pocket she pulled her beaded bag, and from that her wand. She tossed the bag on the muddy ground and rolled up her sleeves. A sound of some sort of collapsing tower met her ears.

"Damn," she muttered. "Those books were alphabetized."

She didn't want to mess around anymore. Her wand shot showers and streams and buckets of sparks at the gates as she murmured the incantation she had memorized. Shapes of shadows and figures of light wrapped around the gates and disintegrated. Finally, she gave her wand one final jab, and the light from the gate went out.

The gate was gone.

"It worked," she said. "It worked! Oh, Merlin, it really worked! I've got to get back to Harry-!"

The red gate suddenly flashed crimson and fire-like light. It splashed against the clouds and angered the storm further. All the sparks and shadows and figures she had used burst back into light, wrapping and twisting and contorting around the red gate. As they vanished, the red gate went with it.

"No!" Hermione screamed, but she couldn't hear herself over the roar of the storm. She was left with nothing but the rain.

_Calm down, Hermione, _she told herself, _you prepared for this. _First off, she would have liked to apparate to a safer location, but just the idea of spinning and spinning and twirling made her sick. She retched, half in fear and half dizziness. Suddenly the rain felt hot against her skin and the wind felt like a frigid arctic zephyr. With nothing else stored in her body's memory to fight this terrifying reaction to knowing she was lost, Hermione passed out cold in the mud, the rain covering her like a blanket.

"Poor dear."

She was awake, alive for the most part, but decided not to open her eyes. She didn't move an inch.

"Poor child. What'dyou suppose she was doing out there in that storm? Blimey…"

"She should be feeling much better when she wakes up," said a cheerful, male voice.

_He sounds young,_ Hermione thought vaguely. _I remember sounding that young…_

"It was right nice of you to bring her in," said the other voice. Female, thought Hermione, older than she was, and maybe even a little overweight. "Nice to put the kettle on, 'swell."

"Of course, Mrs. Cole."

"Now, when did you say you were going back to that boarding school of yours?"

"Two months, Mrs. Cole, on September first. Shall I fetch you some sugar for your tea?"

"Right nice of you," said Mrs. Cole, "but no thank you, Tom. Could you stay here until the young miss wakes up? I have a, ah, meeting with a potential parent. Can't be late. I'll take the tea as I go, thanks. You're an angel, Tom!"

_Tom?_

She had said it twice. A crazy idea popped into Hermione's head. In fact, it was so absurd and ridiculous that she nearly burst out laughing. There was just no way…

_Twelve years, Hermione. That's all any gate has ever sent a person back. No more, no less. Get a grip. You're hysterical from the shock that losing the red gate gave you. You're just upset because you won't see Harry or Ron again for twelve years. That's all. Twelve._

He watched her sleep with little curiosity. Already he had decided to spend minimal effort on this girl. She would wake up, he would send her off with a smile, and then wait the remainder of two months in hell. But then, he would be free.

From the corner of her eye that Hermione dared open a little, she saw the figure of a teenage, smirking, proud Tom Riddle.

_Shit._

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	2. In Which Voldemort Drives a Plymouth

**Second chapter. Enjoy : )**

**I don't own Harry Potter.**

In Which Lord Voldemort Drives a Plymouth

She had seen terrible things in her life. Every now and then, Hermione would still wake up screaming, the forgotten scenes of her youth forcing entry into her dreams. She'd had nightmares before. More than once, she would wake with the image of a dead Harry or an injured Ron still fresh in her mind.

On one such occasion, Ron had shaken her awake, fear and confusion in his eyes. She had clung to him, sobbing, crying, and dreading ever falling asleep again. Who could she cling to now? Her half-open eye looked this boy up and down.

_Hold on, Hermione, _a rational voice intruded, _remember, this is impossible. There isn't a way this can be _the_ Tom Riddle. The lady just said 'Tom'. Tom is a very common name. Calm down. Be rational. Don't do anything stupid._

She put on a show of stirring, and let out a groggy morning-groan to the best of her ability. His dark eyes swept over her. He smiled.

"Ah, you're awake!" he cried cheerfully. He was reading a book. Hermione could have sworn the title read _Getti Gellent's Guide to Dragon Hatching _before the afternoon light flashed across the binding, and it was suddenly _Crime and Punishment._

How fitting. _No,_ she thought, _He can't be Tom Riddle. Don't jump to conclusions._

He helped her sit up. The walls to the room made it look smaller than it actually was, and there was an odd smell of parsnip wafting through the vents. He held out his hand. "Tom Riddle. And you are?"

She nearly fainted again.

It was all she could do – stare. She wasn't supposed to be here for longer than a minute or two, not long enough to change anything in the past, or even run into anybody. It was only supposed to take a minute. She stared. His smile grew slightly confused.

Tom. Tom Riddle.

She felt like she was going to be sick. The young man slowly withdrew his offered hand and tried something else. "Are you feeling quite well?" he asked, concern laced into his words. "You had quite a nasty bump on you head."

She was definitely going to be sick. She gagged, throwing her hand over her mouth. An old bucket was deposited into her lap. Thoughts of bile erased themselves from her mind and Hermione looked back up at Tom Riddle.

_What am I going to do?_

"Shall I fetch Mrs. Cole?" he asked. "She could contact your parents."

Without thinking, Hermione shook her head. It was impossible to contact her parents – they hadn't even been born. And she was old enough to take care of herself. Then, the idea came into her head that she had to leave. She had to get away from him as soon as possible.

Hermione stood up with astonishing force. The bucket clattered to the wooden floor and Tom blinked in surprise. "I've got to get back," she muttered, and made to walk out of the room. She got as far as the bucket before she tripped.

It was a morbid yet fascinating physical sensation, to be caught by Lord Voldemort. The contact between them, the brush of their skin, his body heat seeping through her robes, and the way she could feel how damp and hot his breath was on her neck made her aware of how much trouble she was in.

Riddle chuckled. "Hold on, there. You don't want to fall over, do you?"

She pulled away from his grasp and sat once again on the bed, at a loss for what to do.

"Let's try this again. My name is Tom Riddle. You are?"

Hermione had to think of a plan.

She had to think fast.

"Longbottom," she blurted out. _Hell. _"Hermione Longbottom."

His eyebrows rose slightly, and she seriously doubted for a moment that he would believe her. Then he said, "Where did you come from?"

"Eh?"

"Where did you come from?"

"The, er, I mean the Abbey."

This was falling apart. No matter how anyone looked at it, she was not a nun.

Riddle suddenly threw back his head and laughed. Hermione jumped in surprise. "You," he gasped, "You can tell the truth, Miss Longbottom. We're the same, don't feel frightened."

She stared. "'The same?"

His laughter died down, smile grew mischievous, and he pulled a beautiful, dark wand out of his back pocket. In a moment of madness, Hermione thought he looked just like Harry, smiling with thought of a new adventure at hand, wand between his fingers, boyish joy in his eyes. Minus the glasses, of course.

Faking relief, she sat back. "Oh," she sighed. "How did you-?"

He held up her beaded bag. Hermione gasped and snatched it from his grasp, cuddling it close to her chest like it was some priceless treasure. Riddle sat down next to her. "I didn't look inside," he explained, "I could hear the library falling over."

"They were alphabetized," she groaned.

"What," he said, "if you don't mind me asking, happened to you?"

Short on ideas, Hermione gave a lame answer. "I don't really remember. I was on my way to the Leaky Cauldron and something went wrong with the portkey."

"What were you going to do at the Leaky Cauldron?" he asked.

Hermione shrank back. "I had some things to attend to," she said vaguely. "Kids should mind their own business."

He laughed again; it was such an odd sound. "What do you call yourself?"

That was right. She had forgotten she was no longer twenty-eight. "Seventeen," she said, sitting a little taller.

His smile faltered slightly as he leaned back. "Sixteen."

She did a double take. "Excuse me?"

"I'm sixteen," he repeated. "One year doesn't define who is a child, even if the law says so."

She was _older _than him. Even if she hadn't changed ages, she was still twenty-eight, still older at any rate, but the realization that she was older than the Dark Lord at this moment shocked her. It didn't seem right. It wasn't. It couldn't be.

Riddle glanced at her, then at the grimy, dirty window. "Seventeen, huh?"

"Do you go to Hogwarts?" she asked before she could stop herself.

"Of course," he replied. "Naturally. What about you, Miss Longbottom? Are you finished with school?"

She had been for over a decade. "No."

"Where do you go?"

"B- ah, homeschooled."

He threw her another curve ball. "What do you think about Grindewald?"

She gripped her beaded bag tighter – in it she had a copy of _The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore_, as she always had. The book that revealed their friendship. "Why?"

He shrugged, ignoring her guarded answer. "Curious."

"I think he's a fool," she answered honestly.

He blinked. "Are you not scared of him?"

"Why should I be?" she asked, looking with more meaning than she'd intended into his eyes. "He isn't the worst Wizard out there."

Mrs. Cole burst into the room, shoving a bottle of gin out of sight, a wide – and slightly dopey – smile on her face. "Lunch, Tom. Oh! You're awake, dear. Good, good, please join us! Tom can take you home, afterwards! He just got his license, actually – now he can drive the Plymouth!"

She was bemused and slightly afraid at the idea that Voldemort could drive. The boy in question stood and once again extended his hand to her. "Shall we?"

A sudden surge of hatred rose in her blood. Hatred for him, the murderer, the liar, the deceiver. The man who would kill her best friend's parents, her other friend's brother, her classmates, her classmate's parents, their family, countless Muggles, countless witches and wizards that had done him no wrong. She remembered Harry had told her that he was very good at charming people – they always fell for his act.

Not she. She wouldn't. Pretending she hadn't seen him offer his assistance, she stood up herself. "Thank you," she said to Mrs. Cole.

She didn't miss the strangely enticed look on Riddle's face as he pulled his forgotten hand back to his side once more.

Soon, she found out, she was in the Orphanage that he had grown up in.

_Voldemort always wanted to stay at Hogwarts over vacation, but it never worked. No one would let him._

He must be very unhappy, she thought. There were children everywhere. None were as old as Riddle, and that made him the dominant father figurehead. The young ones flocked around him, showing him crayon drawings, finger paintings, telling him about what they had done to get the cat off the roof, and Riddle listened to it all.

It made her feel dirty. In fact, she couldn't bring herself to eat the bland meal of boiled chicken and vegetables set out by Mrs. Cole. She noticed Riddle didn't eat, either, which enraged her into taking a bite that she promptly spat back out.

"Where do you live, dear?" asked Mrs. Cole.

"Oh," she said, "Um…"

"A few miles west," Riddle intercepted. "We'd best get going, to avoid traffic,"

He stood and the children scampered to their seats at the table, fighting over who got to use the water glass Riddle hadn't even touched. He grabbed her hand and pulled her along after him, toward the front door. Mrs. Cole shouted something after them, but the door swung shut and her words were lost.

"You're not actually going to drive me anywhere, are you?" Hermione asked.

He held up the keys to the old Plymouth parked haphazardly on the street. "For appearances."

"I can just apparate," she said desperately. Her involvement with him was already too high – she didn't want to risk ruining the future.

"What kind of gentleman would I be, to let a lovely Witch like yourself apparate alone?" he asked. "I'll take you as far as the bridge. Get in,"

The bridge was a good two hours away. Hermione was fuming by the time he parked in front of it.

"I never said how close it was," he chuckled.

"I can't stay here any longer," she said, and closed the car door with a bang. "Thank you, but I have to go. Mrs. Cole will be worried about you, you'd best get back."

He closed his own door with better care than she, and stared straight at her.

She frowned. "What?"

"You said you were headed to the Leaky Cauldron?"

"Well, yes, I am-"

"Take me with you."

She nigh fell over. "What?"

"I can't stay here another minute," he said seriously. "I can't wait out another two months with all these Muggles – it's maddening. Please, Hermione-"

She cringed.

"let me come with you. I won't cause problems. I'm handy in a fix, as well. Just until school starts up,"

She didn't know what to do. _I can't get involved with him. I can't. I mustn't! _"Just until you go to school, then" she said. _Shit._

He grinned. It was funny how the smile never reached his eyes. "Well, then," he said, tossing the keys onto the hood of the car and latching onto her arm. She nearly stumbled from the physical contact. "Let's be off, Hermione Longbottom."

It was when he apparated that she began to realize just how big of a mess she was making.

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